A Little Piece of Light by Donna Hylton & Kristine Gasbarre

Author:Donna Hylton & Kristine Gasbarre
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hachette Books
Published: 2018-06-04T16:00:00+00:00

4

INMATE #86G0206

Outside the courthouse as cameras snap and reporters shout their questions, Judge Torres refers to Mr. V’s death as “the crime of the century.” This will do all the more to bring me unwanted attention in the headlines, as well as in prison itself.

My new home will be the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, the nation’s only maximum-security prison for women and known at Rikers Island as “Beddy’s House”—as in, “Look out: When you get to Beddy’s House, they rape you. They beat you up; they take your stuff from the commissary. You end up at Beddy’s House? Then you gotta be real careful.”

Two police vehicles escort the New York City van in which I’m transported an hour outside of the city to a facility with towers, fences, and barbed wires. As we pull inside the prison gates, some incarcerated women come out and stand behind the chain-link fences, watching the show as I’m ushered out of the vehicle in handcuffs. I’ve worn an outfit that a friend bought me—a little pale baby-yellow blouse and matching cotton capris with sandals. In my ears are tiny diamond studs, on my wrist, a small watch. I’m the only one who’s dressed in normal clothes… and because of this, as usual, I don’t fit in.

I subtly scan the crowd to see if I recognize anyone who might have been at Rikers Island with me. There’s not a familiar face among these women.

Twenty-five years to life, I think again. I’ve done the multiplication: that’s 9,130 days, counting leap years. When will Dorothy bring Adrienne to see me?

I’m taken into the reception building, where immediately one of the inmates working there takes me to shower with lye to treat any possible lice. The women instruct me to shampoo my hair, again on both areas of my body, and wash with the soap that they give me. “This soap takes scars away if you use it long enough,” one tells me. You don’t know my scars, I’m tempted to tell her.

Only a thin prison robe separates me from the cold bench, as I wait for officers to look me up and down and tell me what I’ll wear. I’ve heard that state greens are made for men, by men, to fit men, and that rolling the waistline of the pants down to make them fit can get you in trouble. Fortunately, they give me a green prison dress, which fits alright, at least for now. They also allow me to keep my own shoes on, since they’re sandals.

As I dress, I think of all the years I looked forward to choosing my own clothes, all the times when Daphne dressed me like a miniature professor and my shoulders sagged under the weight of her rule. The clothes we wear are an expression of the way we feel inside. Now, anything that ever made me an individual is taken away. This moment feels exactly the way I felt when I was seven years old, moving into the Hyltons’ home.

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